Takeout from Taste of Hunan

The Missus had been wanting more Chinese food recently; and in the mood for something on the spicier (here in SD it's all relative, there's northing even close to Hunan Chilli King here). Her natural choice would be takeout from Village Kitchen, but we'd just done some takeout visits a few months back. I was wondering how Taste of Hunan was doing. It seemed that Taste of Hunan had started pretty strong; but on our last visit, they seemed to be slumping after that start.

So, we decided on Taste of Hunan.....the online ordering made things easy. We ended doing takeout a total of three times over the last month.

The front doorway is now blocked off by a table, with some Plexiglas hanging down as a shield. There was a short wait on all three visits and the young lady working on all those visits had fits trying to pronounce my name....it was funny; by the third visit, it had become some kind of long playing joke. The menu during this time is rather limited; so it's best to see what's available on their website.

So, I thought I'd go over the dishes we had from our (the Missus's) favorite to our least favorite.

The Missus favorite - The Minced Pork with Pickled Vegetables and Bamboo Shoots ($13.99). The Missus's Dad is from Hunan province so She has a fondness for the pickled, dried, and preserved vegetables of the region.

While not being particularly spicy; the Missus really enjoyed the earthy, mildly sour flavors with a hint of spice, and the pork was pretty tender. It wasn't overly greasy and the flavors came thru rather cleanly.

We had this twice and it's the current favorite of the Missus.

On our last visit; I decided to order a dish that I had enjoyed at VK initially, but not on recent visits; the Stir Fried Chicken Gizzards with Pickled Long Beans ($14.99).

The shaved chicken gizzards were springy, yet tender. The Missus loved the preserved long beans in this dish; which had been sliced crosswise, while not super strong in fermented flavor, wasn't overly salty as is the tendency. There was a mild heat to the dish, though nothing too strong. While a tad on the salty side, the Missus said that this dish of all we had is the closest to the flavors She remembers from Hunan.

On our first visit; I got the Changsha Smelly Tofu ($12).

There's was a hint of that decaying vegetable matter, though it definitely wasn't wasn't the stuff the Missus loves. You know, like She always says, "if you can eat it; it isn't stinky enough". Nice savory tones, decent spice, a strong cumin flavor....lovely with rice. Sadly, this was only available on our first visit and not on subsequent ones.

Speaking of rice; I had to try what was my previous favorite dish at Taste of Hunan, the Smoked Pork and Preserved Vegetable Fried Rice ($10.99).

While definitely not as good as the version we had during our earlier visits; there's a lot less preserved vegetables and la rou these days. There's still enough of the smoked pork to give it a pleasant smoky; almost "bacony" flavor. And having the smoked pork finaly chopped minimizes our issue with the la rou at ToH being too hard and tough. While evenly coated with soy sauce; it was a tad on the drier side the two times I got the dish. It is a winner as leftovers with easy-over eggs on it. Which is the main reason I got it in the first place.

The classic Hunan Smoked Pork with Preserved Green Beans ($15.99) was a disappointment.

Village Kitchen still wins out with regards to La Rou in our opinion. The pork as dry, really tough, super salty. The preserved green beans were too hard and there was too little of it in this dish.

The other dish that VK wins out with is the Smashed Eggplant and Pepper with Century Egg ($14.99).

While we found the version from VK to be on the greasy side; this was the polar opposite; too dry and stringy. It also lacked the wonderful smokiness of a well roasted eggplant and was strangely quite bland. We'll stick to the version at Village Kitchen.

Overall, it's now kind of a toss-up between ToH and VK. VK's dishes tend to be more greasy; but the eggplant with pidan, dishes with dried cucumber skin, dried radish, and the Hunan Smoked Pork there gets my vote there. Here at Taste of Hunan; it's that Pork and Bamboo Shoot dish, the Chicken Gizzards, and the fried rice which we enjoy. We didn't order the fried intestines and such since I didn't think it would hold up real well. So, we'll see when we turn the corner on the pandemic and we feel comfortable about dining in again.

When Taste of Hunan first opened, the food was definitely better; though the same could be said for Village Kitchen as well. At least we've got our favorites at each place.

Taste of Hunan
9880 Hibert St. Suite E2
San Diego, CA 92131
(858)-860-5118
Current Hours:
Mon -Tues, Thurs - Fri 11am - 230pm, 5pm - 830pm
Sat - Sun              11am - 830pm
Closed on Wednesday

Comments

[Dereck]

Kirk,
My favorites are exactly the same and the fried rice was excellent the first time I got it. It has been thinned out a bit with time. Still pretty good though.

[Kirk]

Great minds right Dereck? ;o)

[Soo]

The Preserved Vegetable Fried Rice sounds interesting. Can you tell me more about the preserved vegetable?

[Kirk]

Hunan is famous for their dried/preserved vegetables Soo....everything from cucumber skin to radish. The most common is Hunan preserved long beans - which is what Taste of Hunan uses. It's fairly mild in the fried rice Soo, since they don't use a much as they used to. The la rou really adds a nice smokiness.

[Pam from Santee]

Looks pretty good! I've got some tianjin vegetable and bamboo shoot kicking around. I wonder if there's a piece of pork in the freezer?

[Kirk]

Go for it Pam! Let me know how it turns out!

[kat]

at least you still have some favorites at each place.

[Kirk]

Hi Kat - Yes, it's good to find some items that are still to our taste here.

[Junichi]

I haven't had Chinese food in a while. I need to get my fix soon.

[Kirk]

Hope you get your fix in and enjoy what you get Junichi!

[Eddie]

I visit that center every couple weeks for the Trader Joe's... unfortunately it's usually pretty early, way too early for lunch.

In the before times, any later during the week and it'd be slammed with the lunch crowd. These days, any later and the line to enter TJs is a thing and I avoid it if possible.

That being said, I should try the food of Hunan eventually. I'm more familiar with Cantonese or Shanghainese.

[Kirk]

Hi Eddie - Yes, that parking lot and especially getting in and out of that parking lot can be crazy a peak times. Though because things aren't quite as busy right; you might want to place your order online and try to time things.